


Ghosts That Sing

by Claus_Lucas



Category: Mother 1 | EarthBound Zero | EarthBound Beginnings
Genre: Closure, Family Dynamics, Gen, Grief/Mourning, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-08-21 18:53:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8256685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Claus_Lucas/pseuds/Claus_Lucas
Summary: Concerning Maria's return and how Ninten reminded her of her lost son.





	

**Author's Note:**

> starmen.net gave me a t-shirt for writing this
> 
> [ending story](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2D0h7ruTCQ)

The townspeople never knew she returned. Her presence was guarded like a secret, though no one explained to me what had transpired between her disappearance and reentry into our lives to merit such a status. I learned immediately to speak of her in the past tense before she became a figment of the past, and this mentality, supported by everyone but my close-knit family, trickled into our relationship: I began treating her as someone that was in the process of vanishing again, someone that was, perhaps, already dead, socially dead at least. I could not reconcile the excitement in my mother’s face when she communicated with Maria and the sobbing spells that bewitched her each time an ignorant acquaintance breached the subject of Maria’s absence. It was as if we were all living as two very different people, and Maria existed somewhere in the middle, like Schrodinger’s Cat, dead and alive at the same time, the tree that falls in the forest without anyone acknowledging it.

I wanted to understand but I was so young then, and Maria was so distant; she was my grandmother, she was family, but she, also, was a stranger, muttering about people I’d never met and always mourning her son –her son, oh, how she loved her son. Mother would tell me, “Your grandmother lost her son quite tragically and we don’t know the details but she will mourn him until she dies so please, Ninten, understand her suffering, and try not to speak of him in her presence. Unless she asks. Then you must humor her as best you can, and remember to be kind.”

For the most part, Maria did not involve me in her life. But some nights I would lie awake, unable to sleep because her voice filtered through the walls, her terrible, heartrending pleas to no one in specific but anyone that’d accompany her. I wanted to go to her, share that which I was not part of and yet felt compelled to experience. Maria, who wept openly and without shame, who broke her sentences suddenly with rambling of accidents and misunderstandings leading to tragic partings. Maria, who was never concerned with her image, of wearing her scars on her sleeves, and who had to be shielded like a defenseless child. I knew this subconsciously, but would not admit it aloud because of its implications. But all that time, in our home, Maria was being protected, from herself, from the world, from the chance that her life would be somehow worse, because she was already suffering enough and did not deserve the judgment of people that had not seen and felt what she did. On those nights when I listened, my heart, too, would splinter, and, worse yet, I’d feel my ribcage open through my flesh, bone puncturing skin, wanting to be released, to go farther than it could without killing me. I wondered how Maria could carry the weight of that, of her ribcage breaking through her body and her heart having its blood drained until she was dry, dry enough to die with her voice too hoarse to wail anymore. I was so small and yet her despair was so real, as palpable as my dreams where the disembodied teeth of a carnivorous beast lock around my chest and chewed.

I held the corners of my bed. I shuddered, squeezed my eyes shut while squiggles of colored light danced in the darkness of my sight. I debated answering her call and just waiting it out like every other night. And before I could act, she would start to sing, only a little bit, in a soft, tender voice like a fresh bruise that still wasn’t sure how much it would hurt a day from its infliction. It was always the same song, only eight notes long, but it would repeat, who knows how many times because it always put me to sleep at some point during its cycling. In the morning I would remember snippets of what I felt when she begged for someone to bring her news of her son’s whereabouts, of how he’s been doing, and to tell him she always misses him and wishes he’d visit her, just once in a while. But mostly I would recall the singing, like my heart was a crib and she was rocking it into serenity, everything aligning perfectly, a moment in time when nothing could go wrong. And I thought that so strange because she was coughing and blubbering and shaking, everything inside her was in ruins and yet she could recite a song so overflowing with love it would take away the sorrows of others and replace them with safety. Maria, I hardly knew her, and, at the same time, I knew her so intimately, probably more intimately than anyone else in our family. The little glimpses of her soul, they’ve stayed with me through the years. I can almost hear it again sometimes. In a single note: a single fragment of a larger, sadder, and more compassionate melody.

* * *

There was a funeral when she died, but it was a small, private event because there were only a handful of people that knew she was still around. Mother told the priest and he promised to not gossip. The chapel roof was covered in leaves, orange and brown and red and different hues of all of those clustered together like chicken pox marks on a child’s skin. It was autumn and the world was changing, and we were, too: we’d just lost Maria. For me it was a peculiar and mystifying feeling, far from satisfying but also far from heartbreaking. She was not close to me, her loss was not a gaping hole in my life, but, nonetheless, seeing her body being laid inside a coffin and then offered to the earth, to the worms, to the weeds that would reclaim her as nutrients, I couldn’t help but cry, a little bit –a few tears, framing my face like the necklace of pearls around my mother’s neck. And I thought it wasn’t quite fair that the ceremony was so contained, so swift to expire, and that her memory would only remain in us. I thought there surely must be more people that knew her, that cared, that would want to know what really happened when she disappeared and then, abruptly, returned.

There was mud beneath my nails from scraping it off of my boots and my nostrils were filled with the scent of dew, pumpkin, and mulch. Autumn is a season that prepares you for winter, it lets you down softly from the grandeur of summer so the blow of sudden, frigid winds and less sunlight than you’d like is dulled. Everyone is nostalgic in autumn, because it’s a period of reflection, of departure, and resignation. Whether you love the snow of winter or you huddle with resentment beneath blankets, autumn soaks up your memories of summer and sings you a lullaby so you can sleep soundly through the darkest days of the year.

* * *

During the walk back home, mother told me that Maria had loved me. She told me stories about when she first returned and by then I had been born so she could interact with me. It was like reading a really powerful and invocative novel, but it was about someone else’s life, and, as such, I could feel incredibly connected and yet detached, because it wasn’t me, I couldn’t recall the events mother described.

One story in particular stands out in my memory:

“Maria had all these wild theories about you, Ninten. She swore you had supernatural powers, something she said her husband –your grandfather– had mastered. Like she claimed you could move objects with your mind and bend spoons when you were distressed. One time I came home to discover our television had blown up and I asked Maria what happened, and you know what she answered? She said you had done it: that something on the television had bothered you and she didn’t realize until you were so overwhelmed the screen shattered and the wires caught fire. She filled a bucket with water but when she rushed back into the living room you had already put the flames out, with your thoughts or something. I could never get her to tell me what really happened but I don’t think she meant any harm by telling lies like that. Don’t think badly of her, Ninten. Your grandmother was a very troubles woman.”

And there’s another:

“She often compared you to the son she lost. I don’t think I’ve told you before, but he was adopted. Maria wouldn’t talk about where he came from, how he ended up in her care, and what led to their separation. But her love for him was genuine, I’m sure you noticed. She said you acted like him often. For example, how you marveled at the changing of seasons and loved nothing more than being immersed in someone else’s storytelling. Maria’s son was fascinated by all transitional things, apparently. He was young from what I’ve gathered. Maria told him a bedtime story every night, and then sang to him until he fell asleep. The autumn after she came to live with us, you went outside to play and brought back a bag full of leaves. They looked like ordinary autumn leaves to me but you spread them across the dining room table so each had its own space, and you told me how they were different, how they were similar, which might’ve belonged to the same species of tree and which were shed prematurely, still green. Maria watched you and said her son did the exact same thing the first time he experience autumn on Earth. I’m not sure what to make of that, because the literal interpretation of her words is impossible, but I think what she meant to convey was that every autumn, for her son, was like that first, magical autumn.”

I didn’t know myself what to make of these stories, so, like a lot of Maria’s presence in my life, I let autumn sweep it away, as if she were a bundle of leaves left to the wind’s whims, a pumpkin carved apart until it no longer resembles its original self. I always feel nostalgic in autumn, but when it comes to Maria it’s not for the summer that predates it or the winter to follow. Maria is in the autumn roots that tell us everything changes but nothing is truly lost, it comes back from where we lost it, as echoes, as shadows, as mutations and new, fresh perspectives on ancient dilemmas.

* * *

There is a town called Halloween and somewhere inside it there is a building referred to as Rosemary’s Manor. I feel a presence here, so I have come, stumbling through the bowels of so many archived memories. The ghosts here hunger for stories. They’ve been dead for so long that they don’t care about their past lives anymore. But they can be charmed by a tale. If you unfurl your history like a flower, they’ll pluck you from the earth and place your petals between the pages of books, to preserve each instance of it. Ghosts remember the cadence of your performance, how quick your heart pulsed during each act, and how long the silence extended before you could conclude a difficult subject. And then they chatter in familiar voices, like an encore, like they want to pay tribute to what you’ve offered them.

A lady asks me to help her find her missing son. I do not know who her son is or what he looks like, so I couldn’t help her even if I wanted to. She says she understands, she can barely recall him herself. But there is this colossal longing inside her, a hole in her heart that’s shaped exactly like him. I sit beside her to at least express solidarity. My hands can’t touch her, for she is only an illusion, but I hold my arm above her, as if the ghosts could carry this sentiment to her, wherever her spirit was left to wander –maybe the chapel in my hometown, maybe the traveling essence of autumn, maybe a spiral reaching towards the heaven, shell-pink with the texture of clouds.

She tells me thank you for your time, for listening to the moaning of an old, sad woman like her. She has nothing to give in return, but she knows a song that’s pretty nice and she wants to play it for me. If only she could remember it as it was performed in front of her all those years ago. But all she has now is a single note, and that’s the note I hear as her ghastly fingers sway upon the piano keys. I tell the ghosts I don’t know the whole song yet, but someday I will, and I’ll come back so they can hear it and remember it for a few more years. The figure of the woman is fading, her presence splitting into many others, all specters anchored to this building, this very room, where they witnessed a series of confessions that moved them so deeply they wanted to immortalize it. A woman was here, a woman that looked exactly like the one that has just disappeared, and these ghosts that have forgotten the joy of living now live vigorously through what remains of her memory.

It’s one more note. I’m certain it belongs to the set I’ve been collecting. In the crannies of my own conscious, the rhythm with which she sang is imprinted and I can recognize when bits of it surface in the real world. I have to wonder how she managed to influence all these entities, both living and dead, humans, animals, objects, and spirits. She must’ve traveled very far during her life. She must’ve sung for a lot of people, not only her son. Though, perhaps, it was always for her son, just in case the song was ever carried to where he could hear it again.

I remember when my home was in peril, shaken by poltergeists that boomed with thunderous voices. I knocked over a possessed doll and it was exorcised of its wicked intentions. My sister said that the music box inside it used to play a longer song but it’s so old now it plays but one note. A single note. I remember when Maria came with presents. For my sisters, there was a doll worn by love. She said that doll was her son’s favorite toy.

* * *

“A promise is a promise,” I say to him.

“What do you know about anything?” he shrieks. He is shivering and the entire mountain with him, as if he’s a child god throwing a tantrum that’ll undo creation.

“I know your mother loved you very, very much,” is my answer.

“Well, I don’t love her, so what’s her love to me? You think you can stop me with a melody?” he asks, but he does love her, and her love for him is something of significance, and he is leaving, he’s stopping all of this right now, because of that love.

I know I don’t have to say anything else. I can let him go like this, in peace, with the least amount of damage done. I don’t have to push when he’s already retreating. But I made a promise. I promised Maria I’d let him know exactly how she felt, until the very end. And I just can’t watch him only half believing what she’s entrusted to me. He’s making an early escape so he doesn’t have to face the whole of her feelings and that’s not right. That’s not fair. He doesn’t have to love her like she loved him, but he has to understand.

“She loved you until the day she died. She was always asking where you’d gone, hoping you’d come back, at least to visit. She asked me personally that if I ever found you I should tell you that she only ever wanted you to be happy, and she’s sorry you were angry enough to leave,” I say, and it changes everything. He isn’t leaving anymore. His ship is bright again, and his face is contorted with rage, so much negative energy materializing in the palms of his hands, about to spring in our direction with the intention of killing us.

I’ve said the wrong thing. He won’t let us off easy anymore. He is going to fight, harder, and longer, and we are getting hurt. I’ve messed up. I’ve messed up. Why couldn’t I just shut up? Maria would understand if I couldn’t deliver the whole message. I already put her spirit to rest. That was enough. He has had enough, too. He didn’t choose to hate her, it was an accident, a misunderstanding, a cruel decision of his people to change him against his will. I’ve only hurt him, more than he deserves. And now we are all going to die because of it.

But I look beside me and I see my friends, they’re holding my hands, and they are not afraid. Ana says, “If you need to take a break, that’s fine, we’ll take over. You’ve been pulling the team for a while, Ninten. Don’t worry about it. Just take a deep breath and let us handle this.”

And they are. They’re moving in front of me. Ana is raising her hands and conjuring a field of light that absorbs Giegue’s attack. Loid knows he can’t hurt Giegue but he can at least keep him busy with his genius machines until we find a better solution. I remember what Maria said, all of it. Every night I lied awake listening to her. I wonder if she knew back then that I’d fulfill her wish. I guess she must’ve held on because she did. She was waiting for me in her imaginary castle.

“Everyone is upset and wants to lash out when they’re hurt!” I shout, as loud as I can. Giegue is pretending he can’t hear, but of course he can. He’s holding onto every word I utter, as if challenging himself to not care. But he is a child that can’t advert his mother’s accusing gaze.

“I wanted to stop her!” I scream. “I wanted to grab her arms and shake her, and tell her to stop crying, to stop asking for a son that was gone, maybe dead, probably never coming back! But I didn’t! I listened to everything she had to say because her suffering was so much greater than anything I could’ve felt from being exposed to it! And you’re no different, scared because her feelings are so intense they will change you! But you have to let them change you because she was changed by you and never, ever blamed you for breaking her heart! She loved you so much, and she was so worried about what would happen to you that she lingered in death, her spirit haunted me and my family so that I would come here and tell you the truth! I know she would’ve told me: ‘You don’t have to tell him the whole truth! If he’s unwilling, just let him go, as long as he’s in peace! But I won’t! Listen to me, Giegue! I won’t let you go until you accept her feelings!”

I don’t know at what point I start crying but seeing Giegue’s tears suddenly makes me aware of my own. His power is weakening. He knows he’s been defeated. But we have to finish this, together, and he can’t justify hanging around just to hear some old, nostalgic song. So he keeps on attacking, pretending he hasn’t given up. While Ana, who has the sweetest voice of us, starts to sing. She sings until it’s over. Giegue can’t love her like she loved him, but he will accept her feelings.

* * *

This is my first year celebrating Halloween. My mother gives out candy to the town kids every year but I’ve never had any friends of my own to go out with. This year I have two whole friends to enjoy the Halloween season with. And they have a lot of good ideas, from teaching me to bake pumpkin pie to building a replica of a robot’s armor that looks just like the real thing. They’re coming over later today, even though it’s not yet Halloween. They surprised me by calling and asking if they could spend the weekend here, too, so, I quote, “It can be a three day long party!” I think it’s going to be lots of fun. I’ve been having plenty of fun since my adventure and it’s thanks to them.

Today is the anniversary of Maria’s death but my mother is pretending to not realize because she doesn’t want to dampen the mood. I tell her I’m just stepping out for a while, I’ll be back before Ana and Lloyd arrive. She says, “Have fun, sweetie,” and I’m not sure if she knows what I’m up to or not.

Autumn makes me nostalgic and I have mixed feelings about it this year. I do miss last summer but the best of it is not over; I’m not scared of winter. I have friends now and I don’t long for the days when I was just a lonely boy playing in the woods with his dog. I miss Maria now more than I did when she first died, but I think that’s the natural course of loss sometimes: you need time to love what is gone without hurting unbearably.

“Hello, grandmother. Hello, grandfather. Hello, uncle,” I say as I kneel before the tombstone adorned with only Maria’s name. But this has become a memorial to all of them. Wherever the last one is, my words are also for him.

The chapel bell is ringing and shaking off the leaves it has collected, piles sprouting all across the courtyard that crinkle whenever I step on them. I wait until the heavy sound has subsided to tell them about how things have been on my side. I imagine Maria knows everything already because she can’t be contained to a gravesite; instead she wanders wherever she will, occasionally dropping by to see what I’ve been doing firsthand. George is probably still busy planning new inventions, charting new dimensions, proposing and discussing the wild and complex truths of science. Giegue is in a place where seasons don’t function as they do on Earth so I make it a point to always describe the little changes I notice in every facet of nature.

At the end I excuse myself with a song, the same, eight note song that I inherited from all three of them. It’s just in case they become the type of ghosts that forget the joy of their past lives. This song is to remind them that they have left a worthy impact. And in the case of Giegue, I’m sure he’s pretending to resent it, but none of us can afford to let him forget again. I hope no one has forced him. I hope he can still recite all eight notes from heart. Maybe he even sings along.


End file.
